This invention relates to an improvement in perfumes and more particularly to an improvement in concentrated alcoholic solutions of perfume oils used by consumers to impart a fragrance. The improvement resides in the substitution of certain organosilicon compounds for the alcohol component of the perfume.
Perfume oils may be categorized as (i) plant materials such as essential oils obtained by distillation or expression; flower oils obtained by extraction; resins, gums, and exudations such as myrrh, benzoin, labdanum, and gum styrax; (ii) animal secretions such as castoreum, civet, musk, and ambergris; and (iii) chemical substances including isolates from plant materials such as eugenol, citral, and geraniol; derivatives of plant materials such as linalyl acetate, geranyl acetate, and hydroxycitronellal; and synthetic organic substances such as benzyl acetate, mush ambrette, and amyl cinnamic aldehyde. The important types of fragrance produced by such perfume oils include oriental, cologne blend, bouquet, floral, chypre, fougere, spice blend, wood blend, aldehydic blend, and amber.
The most popular product on the market for imparting a fragrance is in the form of an alcoholic solution of the perfume oil. Such products may be marketed under the names perfume, toilet water, eau de toilette, cologne, eau de cologne, eau de parfum, essence, or fragrant water. Typically, these products contain a certain percentage of the perfume oil in 95 percent denatured ethyl alcohol which includes only a very small percentage of water.
However, because of recent federal and state legislation aimed at lowering air pollution, a need has been created for consumer products which contain limited amounts of organic solvents. These air pollution regulations limit the amount of organic solvents that can be discharged into the atmosphere. The term used for solvents is "volatile organic compounds" (VOC). A volatile organic compound (VOC) is defined as any compound of carbon that has a vapor pressure greater than 0.1 millimeter of mercury at a temperature of twenty degrees Centigrade and a pressure of 760 millimeters mercury.
"Volatile organic content" has been defined as the amount of volatile organic compounds (VOC) liberated from a coating as determined by ASTM D3690 and EPA Reference Method 24 which are standard industrial tests. Under the definition, a volatile organic compound is any compound which enters the atmosphere and photochemically reacts in the atmosphere with nitrogen oxides to reduce ozone and form photochemical smog.
Reduction of VOC has been mandated in several states and regulations in California for example require less than about four hundred grams of volatiles per liter of product to enter the atmosphere. This can be determined by baking ten grams of a product in an oven at one hundred-ten degrees Centrigrade for one hour. The amount of solids which remain is subtracted from the total of the ten grams which was tested. Calculations are based on the weight of the volatiles that have evaporated which is reported as grams per liter.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has identified many volatile organic compounds present in consumer products such as the more common solvents ethanol, isopropyl alcohol, kerosene, and propylene glycol, in addition to hydrocarbon solvents such as isobutane, butane, and propane which are employed as propellants in consumer products.
Some states have proposed standards which would limit and reduce the amount of volatile organic compounds (VOC) permitted in various consumer products such as chemically formulated products used by household and institutional consumers including detergents; cleaning compounds; polishes; floor products; cosmetics; personal care products; home, lawn and garden products; disinfectants; sanitizers; and automotive specialty products. These standards would effect such widely used consumer products as shaving lather, hairspray, shampoos, colognes, perfumes, aftershave, deo-colognes, pre-electric shaves, deodorants, antiperspirants, suntan preparations, lotions, breath fresheners, and room deodorants.
Thus, the need for new and novel formulations and techniques for reducing organic emissions should be more than apparent. In accordance with the present invention, it has been discovered that certain organosilicon compounds meet this need.